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Thursday, September 16, 2010

According to multiple reports, former Devils coach Pat Burns has taken a turn for the worse and might be in the final days of his battle with terminal lung cancer.

Burns, who coached the Devils to their third Stanley Cup in 2003, reportedly returned to his home in Magog, Quebec and his family is with him there.

Burns, 58, stepped down as the Devils' head coach following the 2003-04 season because he had been diagnosed with colon cancer. A year later, he was diagnosed with liver cancer, preventing him from returning to the bench following the 2004-05 NHL lockout.

Since then, Burns has served as a special assignment scout for the Devils, spending most of his time during the season at his home in Florida. He revealed he had lung cancer in 2009, but decided not to undergo any further treatments.

Despite a groundswell of support from fans bidding to get Burns voted into the Hockey Hall of Fame before he dies, he was snubbed by that Hall of Fame selection committee in June.

Burns won the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s coach of the year a record three times and ranks 12th all-time in regular season games coached with 1,019 and victories with 501.In 1988-89, the Canadiens reached the Stanley Cup Finals in his first season as an NHL head coach. He also got the Maple Leafs to the conference finals twice. In 2003, Burns added the only notable accomplishment missing from his resume when he guided the Devils to the Stanley Cup.

About

TOM GULITTI has covered the New Jersey Devils for The Record since 2002. Prior to that, he covered the New York Rangers for four years. Gulitti joined The Record in 1998 after six years at The North Jersey Herald News. He graduated from Binghamton University in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric-Literature.